


feelings, or an influx of them, or a lack of them

by pleadingforclarity



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, it's sad but hopeful sad, platonic skimmons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-28
Packaged: 2019-04-14 00:03:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14123745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pleadingforclarity/pseuds/pleadingforclarity
Summary: jemma simmons believes wholeheartedly that her feelings on the mattershouldn'tmatter.





	feelings, or an influx of them, or a lack of them

Jemma walks to door of their makeshift bunk at the Lighthouse and hovers before it, glancing around anxiously. If he’s in there, would he even want her to come in? The question makes her linger longer than she likes, longer than she expects. After everything they’ve been through, she shouldn’t _still_ be standing there, should she? 

She watches Piper walk around the corner, giving the agent a curt smile before looking down into the cup of tea that is getting lukewarm. Piper passes, and Jemma feels her stare on her cheeks like the sun on her face. She finds eye contact difficult, more difficult than usual, after everything, Once the hallway’s clear, she lets herself relax, staring at the doorknob with a glare that had the potential to melt the metal away. If only she could.

This is his journey, she reminds herself. It’s not about me. Echoes of past experiences, too many of them parallel to the one she is inhabiting now, wash over her in waves. No, her feelings are the least of the problem right now. It’s about his. _It’s about his_. 

She walks back down the hall in the opposite direction, taking a sip of the tea that wasn’t supposed to be hers. It’s tepid.

 

 

The logic is, if Jemma can talk to Daisy, she’ll have a better chance talking to Fitz. And so, she finds herself watching Daisy’s back from her workstation, trying to get her (friend?) fellow agent to turn around. 

If she can’t look _Piper_ in the eye, of all people, how on earth is it rational to expect Daisy to engage in a conversation with her? Jemma’s received a look from Daisy, one filled with unspoken thoughts and anger and regret and betrayal and nothing more since that horrible day. She suddenly remembers Daisy’s heaving sobs and pleas and the image of a broken Fitz leaning over her quaking body and “I will never forgive you” and she feels sick all over again.

_It isn’t about me._

If Daisy never forgives Fitz, does that mean she’ll never forgive Jemma? At the rate they’re going, she thinks, the answer seems to be the most logical one. Something bitter coats the back of her throat and she stands up jerkily, pushing her chair against the floor with a noise that cuts through the silence of the room jarringly. Her computer rattles on its ledge as papers on the longevity of the gravitonium drift lazily to the floor.

If she would’ve looked back as she exited the room, she would’ve seen Daisy’s eyes follow her figure with a misty concern. But she doesn’t look back and doesn’t realize that some things cannot be broken, no matter how hard the universe tries.

 

 

Fitz begins to work with them again, slowly but surely, regaining their unsubstantiated trust. He’s finished Yoyo’s arms and Daisy’s scab has healed after some time and ointment and it’s something, the very least. They all have a common goal, May reminds them. Getting Coulson back. They can work with a common goal. 

And so Jemma talks less, which suits her, and tries to give Fitz his space. She starts from the beginning with Daisy unknowingly it and laughs hard for the first time in what seems like centuries when Daisy recounts the first conversation they shared, much like the ones they’d been having, beginning with crisps on tables of varied equipment. Things start regaining a semblance of normalcy. A tense, empty, always-pushing-towards-something kind of normalcy. 

She and Daisy listen to Deke talk, content on just being inattentively-attentive as he goes on about his exaggerated adventures in the Lighthouse of the future. When the two of them really converse, it’s always about Coulson, or Yoyo, or, more sparsely, Fitz. But it’s when they don’t speak that the most is said.

One night, the pair of them watch the news, lounging on the Lighthouse’s sole couch they found on one of the lower levels after the rift was healed. They share a packet of stale chocolate chip cookies and stare absentmindedly at the screen, both preoccupied with the ramblings of their clouded minds. When Daisy leans her head on her friend’s shoulder, it takes a moment for Jemma to even realize the shift and another to relax into the once-familiar position. Weary with thoughts of the past and worries of the future, she sighs, letting her head rest on top of Daisy’s. It's just like it'd been _before_ , well, everything.

Soon, they’re both practically asleep, barriers developed by their recent trauma de-materializing when Daisy adjusts her position from Jemma’s shoulder to full-on laying on Jemma's legs, making them her pillow. They’d adopted this position often on the Bus, and to Jemma, it felt strangely like the first time she'd gone home after receiving her first PhD, everything in the house exactly the same except completely different. 

They fall asleep on the couch together and wake up, sore, but a bit more whole. 

 

 

The truth is, Jemma misses being embraced. She only allows herself to touch Fitz when he gets worked up and the eyes of the team linger on his pained expression, just waiting for him to burst. And each time she remembers his skin is her _home_ and she has flashes of Fitz wrapping his arms around her and stroking her jawline and _kissing_ her bottom lip and she quickly lets go, giving him one of her reassuring smiles instead. 

After a particularly long day a week after their night spent watching TV, Daisy pulls Jemma aside and wraps her arms around her. At first, Jemma doesn’t return the hug, afraid of her emotions, but then she remembers their hug after she fell out of the Bus and their hug after Daisy’d quaked her bones out of desperation and hope and allows herself to respond in kind to Daisy's embrace. 

“We’re gonna get through this, Simmons,” Daisy whispers into her shoulder, seeming as confident as she was that horrible day, and Jemma tries her hardest not to cry. 

It isn’t about her, her mind reminds her. _It isn’t_. 

Maybe so, maybe not. But she will be okay. She _will_ be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> i just hope they get back to at least resembling the bus kids at SOME point in the future. i love me some good old platonic skimmons and some good old jemma-working-through-trauma. thank you so much for kudos and comments, they make my day!


End file.
